KYIV, Sept 1 (Reuters) – Russia attacked Ukraine’s port infrastructure and a border crossing with Romania in the southern Black Sea region of Odesa overnight, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the strike “deliberately damaged a border crossing point on the border with Romania, as well as export infrastructure.”
Ukraine’s emergency service said the attack had also targeted energy infrastructure and caused a fire at a residential building, where one person was hurt, without giving further details.
In recent months, Russia has sharply increased both the number and intensity of its drone strikes on export infrastructure in the Odesa region, home to Ukraine’s main Black Sea ports as well as the major Danube river ports of Reni and Izmail.
Russian attacks have effectively blocked the seaports, which once handled 90% of the country’s exports, forcing Kyiv to divert cargo through Danube river ports with lower capacity and to railway crossings on the western border.
The Ukrainian border service said on Tuesday that in the overnight strike, Russia had attacked and damaged a checkpoint for ferry services at Orlivka on the border with Romania.
“Processing of citizens and vehicles through this checkpoint has been temporarily suspended,” the service said in a statement.
The Odesa region faced more than 300 air-raid alerts in August, lasting a combined 238 hours, according to a monitoring service.
Railway officials say constant air-raid alerts and attacks on facilities are significantly complicating their operations.
However, Ukrainian railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said it had increased grain deliveries to the Danube’s ports for future exports.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk and Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Aidan Lewis)
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